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Happy Gnome
Human
(9/23/03 5:41 pm)
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Better motivation for bad guys?
Hi all, first post to the board here.
I'm about to co-DM RttTEE with a close friend. My role is to help with the pacing, and where possible replace the bland/cliché with trippy stuff.
I've started reading the posts but it'll take me a while to plow through, so if I'm covering old ground please accept my apology and point me to the relevant thread.
I'm really impressed with The Cook's work, but the bad guys' motivation is a bit bland. For two reasons:
1) Villains that self-identify as "evil". Remember the Camp Crusty episode on The Simpsons, where Principal Skinner raises the toast, "Ladies and Gentlemen: to Evil!" ... (need I say more?)
2) The cultists are all insane, and therefore they plan to annihilate everything!
I'm tempted to just look the other way and play it campy, but we only play once or twice a month, so we're going to be inside this campaign forever. It's gotta make more sense.
This is the alternative my partner and I are considering:
1) The cultists believe that Tharizdun is present but dormant in all matter on the Prime Material Plane, and they seek to "awaken" him, and so awaken a dormant intelligence in all the worldly elements.
2) They believe they will be able to control the awakened elements and so be superduper powerful.
3) More critical thinkers (the opposition) think they're nuts to try something so risky and potentially world-ending. "You wanna make all soulless rocks/fire/water/air, everywhere, intelligent?! Are you outta your mind?"
It's sort of like the contemporary fears over nanotechnology and AI. Mad scientist stuff. Cliché in SF, but maybe fresh in D&D.
Has anybody here done something similar? If so, any advice on tweaking/gutting the campaign? Or am I asking for more trouble than it's worth?
Happy Gnome
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arcane12
Faen
(9/23/03 6:12 pm)
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Re: Better motivation for bad guys?
One point to consider (which can be drawn from DnD in general or even real religion) is that yes, it does seem silly that they would want to destroy the world, but because of their knowledge (or even belief) that their soul will go to a better place when they die (to be with their god), they don't care if destorying the world it the sole taget of their god. If he wins, yes the world is destroyed, but the clerics and followers will get to spend eternity with their god!
Another way it could run is that they beleive he is there to destroy the world, but will take them to a different world (if you are doing the Tarizdun is from another universe/far off pantheon/other dimension) when he has destroyed this world that is not to his liking.
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 Infiniti2000
Verrik
(9/23/03 7:03 pm)
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ezSupporter
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Motivation
"Hi all, first post to the board here."
Welcome! After reading the sticky threads, check out the links (one of the FAQ posts has them). There's a lot of good stuff there, particularly on ZansForCans's site.
"Villains that self-identify as "evil"."
This (not surprisingly) has been mentioned before. One board member (LostSoul) went through some signifcant effort making the bad guys seem more bad. The Best of the Board (BoB) has some of these Vile/Mature ideas in them. I suggest you check them out. Perhaps, they might even be on Page 21 (ZansForCans's site). Anyway, these changes will be difficult and tedious to pull off, but perhaps with co-DM's you guys can really do a good job on it. It will help if the campaign is RP heavy and not combat heavy; tough to do given the 'meatgrinder' aspect of the module.
"The cultists are all insane, and therefore they plan to annihilate everything!"
No, you have this in reverse. This is subtle, but key. Tharizdun wants to annihilate everything and in this translates into making his clerics insane. In particular, the clerics who realize the real end goal, the Doomdreamers, are truly insane. They know what will happen and don't care or look forward to it. Most, if not all, of the other clerics aren't even aware of the repercussions of their actions. They are merely mad from the contact and power derived from Dread Tharizdun.
Although your new idea is not 'wrong', it is really a stretch from the original ToEE and pretty much all other Greyhawk (i.e. Tharizdun) canon. Maybe this is okay for you, particularly if you are not using a Greyhawk setting (I am not, for instance). But, you should be aware of it and if your players are experienced gamers and familiar with the setting, they might be very suspicious and the game could suffer.
As an alternate suggestion, perhaps the 'annihilation' rumored to occur is merely an exaggeration. Perhaps, the intent is to decimate the world and subjugate it wholly, turning it into a bleak landscape filled with horrors and unimaginable evil, overlorded by the remaining clerics of Tharizdun, with the Doomdreamers as the cabal.
Just some thoughts, and keep posting!
PS Are you using 3.0 or 3.5 or some other conversion?
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wombatlord
Human
(9/23/03 8:07 pm)
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Re: Motivation
The Happy Gnome said:
[i]1) Villains that self-identify as "evil". Remember the Camp Crusty episode on The Simpsons, where Principal Skinner raises the toast, "Ladies and Gentlemen: to Evil!" ... (need I say more?)[/i]
In the 3E world, evil isn't a debatable issue. One can, in fact, detect that someone is evil, or good or lawful, or whatever. Self-identifying themselves as evil isn't any different for their universe than self-identifying oneself as 'Republican' is in the real world. And even in the real world, we have groups which identify themselves as 'Satanic', etc.
Alignment isn't just a convenient term; it's something which can be actually detected, measured, and changed.
The Happy Gnome said:
[i]2) The cultists are all insane, and therefore they plan to annihilate everything![/i]
This isn't exactly correct, as was pointed out before. The worship of Tharzidun is best seen, I think, as a Lovecraftian phenomena. You start out worshipping him because you think you're backing a winner and you want power for yourself. But worshipping Tharzidun slowly eats away at your sanity, until finally, you either realize what is going on and reject it (like Varachan did) or else you lose your sanity and embrace Tharzidun's true goals, which you don't find out until you're completely his...the destruction of everything.
Each layer of the cult thinks it knows the truth, but is really just puppets for the layer above it, which is more insane and more under the say of Tharzidun. Only the innermost circle (Doomdreamers) realizes that Tharzidun is going to destroy the world. Compare this to Geynor Ton's journal, where he thinks the faithful will be rewarded and their enemies crushed when Tharzidun is free.
If you want to go for a really unusual twist, I'd say to go buy D20 Cthulhu and have Tharzidun be one of the Outer Gods or Great old Ones...
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smetzger
Faen
(9/24/03 5:24 am)
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Re: Motivation
Quote:
Each layer of the cult thinks it knows the truth, but is really just puppets for the layer above it, which is more insane and more under the say of Tharzidun. Only the innermost circle (Doomdreamers) realizes that Tharzidun is going to destroy the world. Compare this to Geynor Ton's journal, where he thinks the faithful will be rewarded and their enemies crushed when Tharzidun is free.
I think this is one of the keys to understanding. Think of the cult as a very secretive society wherein only the very high ups know all the secrets. The lower levels strive to outdo each other so that they can get to a higher level where there is more power and know more secrets. However, as they climb in power and position in the cult they become ever more obsessive and this leads to insanity.
Also, the 'oblivion' that Tharizdun offers is not very far from the 'Nirvana' that some real world eastern religions offer.
I don't think any of the priests in the CRM know that the 'Masters' are seeking to destroy the world. They are all obsessed with climbing the ladder in the CRM and gaining entrance into the secret society of the Outer Fane.
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Andorax
Verrik
(9/24/03 7:21 am)
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Re: Motivation
In fact, to expand on this (check Best of the Boards, page 2, for the "motivations" posts...several personalities ascribed to various NPCs), I had a differing take on Gren.
Daughter of a wealthy merchant or minor noble. Rich, bored, no cares. Joined up with this "evil cult" as much on a lark as anything else, and for quite a while, it was exciting and fun...she was able to use her "powers" to affect others...meaningless peasants, of course. Nobody important.
Then came the search for the artifacts in the Moathouse. THIS was cool. Ok, it got creepy when the Trog and the Gnolls showed up, but what the hey...then it got downright terrifying when the Dragon showed up, and she was nearly bitten in two and barely healed by Geynor...and now that dang Trog is threatening to kill her if she doesn't guard the artifacts.
I had Gren tagged as "redeemable" if handled properly and handed over to the priest of Pelor back in town. She really doesn't know what she's in for, and it's not fun or cool anymore.
Also, just something to consider...there's several different ways to look at "trying to destroy the world" insanity at the upper levels. There's Hedrack's perspective:
"It'll never work, but so long as they think it will, I've got a sweet deal administrating this place and enjoying all the perks of power."
Then, there's how The First sees it...keeping in mind his masocistic tendancies:
"The world is bad, the world is evil and wicked. The world has defied Lord Tharizdun for too, too long. Come, oh Great and Dread Lord. Crack this undeserving world in twain and end these miserable, pathetic lives, undeserving of existance!"
"Whadda ya mean, Orcs get levels too?!?" |
Happy Gnome
Human
(9/24/03 8:50 pm)
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Re: Motivation
Thanks everybody for your thoughts. I've spent a couple of days mulling this stuff over.
arcane12, that make good sense. One month ago I was on vacation at a lake in the Canadian Shield, relaxing, totally unaware of RttToEE. I was reading d20 Cthulhu, Necronomicon and some Lovecraft, and scribbling away on index cards. I came up with another universe, a little aborted one. I figured that when God was young He made a mistake with the first universe He created. He'd just finished building the elemental planes and His head was all, you know, elements, elements, elements, so when working on the Prime He gave the elements too much thought (literally) and didn't like the result. He'd given intelligence and intent to inert stuff, creating soulless life. So He left the first universe, small and unfinished, resting where He modelled it in the deep ethereal near the elemental planes, the colour pool sealed behind a vast metal and glass grid. Behind the lock He abandoned the elemental gods and Tharizdun, dooming the whole bunch to something like endless adolescent angst.
As you can probably tell, I was really fond of that idea.
Infiniti2000, thanks for the pointers (but damn, there's a lot of reading to do). Regarding motivation, the DM would understand the higher ups' motivation while the players would perceive clerics hungry for power. smetzger and Andorax make similar points. I'm concerned that only the DM enjoys the nifty idea (the secret truth), so bad guy motivation might seem thin from the players' pov. A set of ethics, anything, would be nice. But, thank you all, now I see how it makes more sense and how The Cook's idea is tastier than I was giving it credit. Re. Greyhawk cannon, I don't bother building a credible secondary world these days. It takes me too long and it's just not as interesting as describing the goo that's eating! through! the! door! Thankfully, this batch of players is new to role playing and doesn't know the first thing about Greyhawk. Is that sweet or what?
Wombatlort, yeah, I'm probably not giving objective evil it's due. I try, but it's a weird and sort of tasteless thing to imagine (I invariably end up with eternal torture involving a ring of regeneration). "West" is a detectable indicator of direction, just as "Evil" is, but neither holds a lot of meaning. And even the Republicans have a set of ethics you can pick apart. I still need more meat on these cultists' bones!
I think I'll turn off the computer and get all this reading finished. I'll post again in a couple of weeks or so. Thanks again for your thoughts, I appreciate the time and obvious care that went into the replies.
Happy Gnome
Edited by: Happy Gnome at: 9/24/03 8:52 pm
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